The present invention relates to devices for pulsating the flow of a fluid, such as water; and particularly to pulse generators for use with shower heads.
Water shower enclosures often have a shower head which can produce several different spray patterns as selected by the user. This type of shower head has a diverter mechanism that is manually operable to direct water from an inlet through separate flow paths to different groups of outlets which form the spray patterns. Typically one of the spray patterns is pulsed to create a massaging effect. A common way in which the pulsating pattern is produced uses a turbine valve located in a chamber of the associated water path. Water entering the chamber rotationally drives the turbine which has a plate that opens and closes outlets from the chamber as the turbine spins. The cyclical opening and closing of the outlets pulses the flow of water through them. The other flow paths bypass the turbine chamber so that the corresponding spray patterns are not pulsed.
A single shower enclosure may have multiple shower heads usually positioned at different heights to spray different parts of the user's body. Although it is possible to use self contained pulsating shower heads at each location within the shower enclosure, it is more cost effective to provide a single device for creating a pulsating flow which is applied to all the shower heads. Such a common pulsating mechanism is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,927 and includes a water driven valve mechanism for creating a pulsating flow at an outlet which communicates with several spray heads. However, this mechanism has a single flow path and can only produce a pulsed water flow.